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Staff Spotlight on 3 Outstanding Hospice Aides

National Nursing Assistants Week was observed in our last edition, but we are still celebrating. Today we are spotlighting three more incredible Crossroads Hospice Aides who are on the frontline of patient care, State Tested Nursing Assistants (STNAs) Kimberly Jackson in Northeast Ohio, Antoinette Morris in Cleveland and Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) Latoya Hunter in Philadelphia. 

Hospice Aides spend the most amount of time with our patients and their families. They have endless compassion, each with their own signature way of providing end-of-life care.

Kimberly Jackson Brings 30 Years of Compassionate Caregiving

“The best medicine is if you can get them (patients) to laugh.” That’s according to Crossroads in Northeast Ohio Hospice Aide Kimberly Jackson. Kimberly is serious about liking “to see people comfortable. It’s not about me, it’s about them, their (patients’) comfort.”

Kimberly has been with Crossroads for more than 15 years and previously worked at a different local hospice for five years before joining Crossroads. Prior to specializing in end-of-life care she was an Aide in long-term care facilities and in home healthcare. 

After being an Aide for more than 30 years, Kimberly said, “I’ve always cared about patients.” But it all started a lot earlier. “I’ve been a really caring person my whole life.”

Kimberly grew up on a farm with respect for the circle of life. As a very young person she would sit by the side of beloved horses as they passed, waiting patiently for them to “take their last breath.”

Years of patient care have prepared Kimberly to navigate her many patients with Alzheimer’s Disease. “I’ve been called every name in the book,” she said knowing, “they won’t remember how they behaved tomorrow. It’s not their fault.” Kimberly “just keeps smiling.”  

She’s had a stressful but “very rewarding” career and yes, she does get attached to her patients and their families, admitting “It’s hard to take time off. I care so much for my patients.” Another thing she loves about working in hospice? “It’s okay to get attached.”

Antoinette Morris finds Rewards in Hospice Care

“Care that I would have liked to give.” Crossroads Hospice Aide Antoinette Morris remembers rushing through caregiving when she worked as an Aide in a long-term care facility. It was stressful. “Working short (staffed) on the first shift and everything had to be done so fast.” 

Antoinette observed Crossroads Hospice Aides caring for patients in her long-term care facility. “No one looked stressed,” she said, and they didn’t have to “rush around.” More importantly, Antoinette observed Crossroads professionals actively ensuring that, “No one dies alone.”

That was more than 15 years ago. Antoinette has been with Crossroads since November of 2008. “You’ll want someone to be there for you,” is what she told her family and friends who were skeptical about her dedicating her career to end-of-life care. 

Learning to travel to patients’ homes before GPS and learning all the signs of transitioning to death were part of Antoinette’s initial orientation to hospice her first year on the job. It didn’t take long for her to know that she had firmly found her place.

“A hospice aide is more than ‘the aide,” Antoinette said. “We get close with families on the frontline who are at their most vulnerable time.” Antoinette is also the professional link to the integrated care team, reporting on patients’ changes and flagging emergencies.

Not “cooped up” in a stress filled facility, she loves that “every family is different and no two patients are alike.” Antoinette excels as an end-of-life caregiver and she finds it so rewarding.

Latoya Hunter Embraces a New Career in Caregiving

In less than two short years Crossroads Hospice Aide in Philadelphia Latoya Hunter has distinguished herself professionally. She joined Crossroads after earning her Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) and working in different long term care facilities and agencies. 

But for 12 years prior to becoming a CNA, Latoya was climbing the ladder as a Walmart retail manager in Philadelphia and Atlanta. When she returned to Philadelphia a few years ago, Latoya was “tired of retail.” She wanted to “enjoy what I do.” That was the beginning of her second career as a professional caregiver.

“I want to be able to bring comfort” to patients and “assist with their care,” Latoya said. “When a patient passes, I feel comfort in knowing I gave excellent care in their last days.”

Looking back that wasn’t the case when Latoya’s Grandmother was in her final days, transitioning back and forth. Now she “is able to help someone else” as part of her newfound caregiving profession. 

“Hospice fits me 100 percent,” Latoya said. Her time at Crossroads has been positive since her first interview with Crossroads Executive Director in Philadelphia Monica Sullivan. “I felt so welcome,” she said.

Latoya has “learned so much from the nurses.” Predictable hours have also allowed her to “slow down and be a Mom” to her active school age kids.

Recently she attended the viewing of a patient she had cared for who passed. Her daughters surrounded her with hugs when she arrived. What Latoya appreciated was that it was her presence that made the daughters smile. It means a lot to her but also demonstrates the impact she has as a Hospice Aide.

Note: National Nursing Assistants Week was Thursday, June 11 – Thursday, June 18, a time to showcase outstanding, compassionate Crossroads Hospice Aides who work tirelessly every day to make sure our patients are cared for with respect and dignity.

As America Celebrates 250 Years of Independence We Salute Cicely Saunders, the Founder of Hospice

This year’s 4th of July marks the 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. While we remember our country’s founders and their brave leadership, we take a moment to remember Dame Cicely Saunders who is considered the founder of the modern hospice movement.

Born in England in 1918, Saunders was a medical social worker during World War II. After the war she cared for a 40-year-old Holocaust survivor with a terminal illness. During the several months she cared for the patient he shared his life’s fears and regrets.

A Model of Care for End of Life

After her journey with that patient, Saunders was inspired to create a model of care that addressed the specific needs of patients in end-of-life care. 

She believed that doctors gave terminally ill patients a lower standard of care compared to healthy patients. 

Determined to make a greater impact, Saunders returned to school to become a physician herself, graduating with her medical degree in 1957.

Physical and Emotional Needs

Systematic and holistic, Saunders introduced the concept of “total pain,” recognizing that physical suffering is often intertwined with emotional, social and spiritual distress. Through careful record-keeping, pain assessment methods and patient-centered practices, she helped establish new standards of care for the terminally ill.

In 1967, Saunders founded St. Christopher’s Hospice in England, where she cared for thousands of patients. Her work revolutionized end-of-life care by combining medical care, pain management, research, education and emotional support. 

As America celebrates the founding of our country, let’s also celebrate the founding of dignified, respectful and compassionate hospice care and the woman behind it.

Out of Many, One

By Danny Gutknecht

I remember the Fourth of July at my grandfather’s place in rural Nebraska — hanging the flag in the morning, making homemade ice cream in the driveway, and wondering if the sparks for the fireworks would fizzle out before hitting the darkened fields.

We treat Independence Day as the day our country broke away from a King. The idea of Independence has connotations of freedom, liberty, standing on your own two feet. But the self-made person, the single-minded individualism, is the country’s favorite ghost story. They don’t exist. None of us got anywhere alone, someone, somewhere along the way helped and gave us knowledge or a helping hand. And hopefully none of us have to leave that way.  It’s part of the Crossroads mission, right? No one dies alone? 

The founding fathers struggled with the fact that we needed a reminder of what Independence stood for so they sought out a motto. Maybe they worried the term independence felt a little too isolated.  Why else would you need a tagline like, E Pluribus Unum — “Out of Many, One?" The Fourth was the day thirteen colonies broke free of a kingship. Thirteen rivals, who were already good at standing apart, began the harder work of staying together in relation to one another in an effort to become a union. 

Anyone who has been in a close relationship knows a union isn’t always, well unified. Human beings are not always unified within themselves either. We have conflicting thoughts, drives, needs, fears, and hopes. We spend decades proving how independent we are before the body calls the bluff. The hands that did everything for themselves start asking for help. A meal, a bath, just a few steps across the room.

But this is where we tend to think backwards. Needing is not the opposite of dignity. Asking for support, and giving it, may be one of the most human things we do. We come into the world being held, fed, and carried by other people, and many of us go out the same way. To let someone in — to wash you, sit with you, stay — is a kind of courage most people never have to find until they are there, in it.

So the real fireworks, the nighttime sparkles that quickly fade in the sky, might be the fact that our deepest independence was never about needing no one, but about how we stay in-relation to each other.

Out of many, one. Might be one of the most difficult things we do, and, hopefully, it’s something that we’ll never quite finish doing. Staying in-relation.